Darn wireless connections

[ikey]

I have a dell lat notebook.
I have a broadband connection with a wireless router.
My main pc has wireless pc card and works fine.

I installed the wireless card on my notebook tonight and it will connect "once" in a while. (only 10 % of the time),

I put it about 3 feet from the router and turned the laptop sideways and it loaded web pages beautiful!!.
As soon as I moved the laptop to the left or right the web pages stopped loading.(page can't be displayed/can't find server).
I look at the signal strength and it is still 80 %.
Does anyone have any idea what can be done??

The router and pc card is a Belkin wireless.

And like I said, the wireless works great in the other computer.
It is just when I add another wireless card it will get problems.

Any suggestions??


-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

ikey,
Fist thing I would check are the wireless settings on both the laptop and the router. Do the chann settings match? The wi-fi card in the laptop needs to access the router on the same chann ie: if the chann is 6 on the router the chann needs to be 6 for the laptops wi-fi card settings. Also check the WEP or WPA settings make sure they are correct. Also just for the time being it might be a good idea to turn off any firewall that may be running on the laptop just to make sure that isn't the issue for now. There are a vast number of reasons why this could be going on so try a few things to help us narrow it down.

[ikey]

Hello!!

The router is on channel 11
and the wireless card is on channel 11 also.

what is the WEP or WPA settings??

What is the key??
I am running XP PRO.

When I double click on the signal icon, it says select the connection (which does not show up as Belkin instead it is WLAN) and then it says that it needs network key.
I try to type something in the box but it is in gray and will not let me type.

I hit "connect" and it does nothing.

If I hold the laptop up in the air and move it around, it will slowly connect (like 14.4 K modem).


also:
My manual shows a screen different than my screen in the setup.


It will connect at times but is running at 56 K speed.

(and I have broadband).

Only when I had it 2 feet from the router and connected for a few seconds at high speed.

It keeps loosing signal and it is very poor.

(even though it says "very good" signal in the belkin utility).

I am lost.

Why is it so hard to setup wireless on these darn notebooks????

It is frustrating.

At this point, I feel that I have spent $ 50.00 for nothing.
last eve I put back my regular network card and plugged in the network cord.
It seemed good to get 1889 K !!!!
It gave me no hassle.

I guess I should just forget wireless.

Thanks for your help!

-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

Yes networking can be a pain at first but once you understand what needs to be done it can be the best thing ever. Wireless networking is a little tricky but don't worry we can help you work it out just hand in there. Now since the chann is the same on the router and the card thats good. Since it sounds like you don't know much about WEP or WPA I'm going to assume you didn't set it up. By default in most routers its not turned on so lets not worry about that for right now as it shouldn't be an issue. Now since you are saying that "When I double click on the signal icon, it says select the connection (which does not show up as Belkin instead it is WLAN)" and that its asking for a network key my guess is that your wi-fi card is picking up someone else's wireless signal. What you want to do is go into your routers setup page "you should be able to access that via a web browser" and first make sure that "wireless" is enabled then set the SSID to something you want. You can name it anything you like. Now go back to the laptop and do a "view available wireless networks". Now if you see your new SSID try and connect to it. Post back and we can go from there.

[ikey]

Hello,

I went to the router setup page to view and get info.
It says SSID AS "WLAN".

I can try to change it to another name, however, isn't ok to leave it as WLAN??

also- I looked at the list under information, it list :
connected clients: 7

what is the 7 connected clients??

This is when I only have one pc running off the wireless network.

Are there 6 people with me connected to the router??

anyway.



Thanks for your help, I will look further into it.

-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

Ok if your SSID is WLAN then you should only try to connect to WLAN with your notebook. The six connected clients could in fact be other people using your connection since you say you don't have WEP or WPA turned on then it would be an open system meaing others could hop on the signal. If you want to check out who it connected you can have a look in the "dhcp client table" and that should give you the ip addresses of connected clients. As for getting your laptop connected goes if the chann is the same the SSID you try to connect to is WLAN then you should be able to connect just fine.

[ikey]

Hello,

I changed the name and I saw it show up on my laptop.
I try to connect and it will say,"loading page" it will take forever or it will send a page can't be displayed.

The channel is the same.
SSID is the same.

But will not connect unless I have it a foot away from the router.
(and keep it a certain way).

What is strange:

The signal shows 86 to 90 % in the other room.

And it sees the router fine.

When I go on the net, it has trouble.
I disabled the firewall in XP.

Also- the six pc's are when I had other computers that I tested on my connections the past week.

I do not know why the pc's are still there on the list.

anyway....

I have no idea what else to do.

???


Thanks for your help.

-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

Well it sure sounds like something is wrong if you are getting that strong a signal but can't really connect. I'm going to bump this post to the top and if anyone else has any ideas they can feel free to post.

[ikey]

I hooked it back up to the regular lan card and plugged it in.
it works great!

The wireless will not work however.

I am now thinking that the wireless card is faulty.

any suggestions?

-Ikey

[ikey]

Does it make any difference the model of the router?
My Belkin is a 802.11B
Model FD5D6230-3

The wireless card in the laptop is:

belkin 802.11G
F5D7010
2.4 GHz


could having the 802.11B router

and the wireless 802.11G (in my laptop) causing my problem with the connection ?



thanks-

-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

No that wouldn't cuase the issue.

[ikey]

Hello!

I took the wireless card back to staples and got another card.
Bingo!

The new card works great!!


I guess the other wireless card was at fault.

The laptop runs beautiful on the net.

I am getting 600 K right now.

GREAT!!


-Ikey

[bAdWaYz]

Thank you very much for posting back with an update. I'm glad to hear you got things fixed up but sorry to hear the first card was a dud. If you ever have any other questions feel free to post back here and we will do our best to help. I hope you found this place helpful even if we didn't spot a fix for your problem this time. We did manage to cut down on the things it could have been however so that was good heheh.

[ikey]

I want to thank you!
You really helped me to check out the problem.
And I did learn a little more along the way.
And you helped me to decide (after checking and the tests we ran)
that I needed a new card.
(because the old one should have worked).


It seems good to get the laptop on wireless!!


Thanks again!


-Ikey